Understanding the Law Brings Perspective

It’s Wednesday following the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy 2015  and I finally have a few minutes to share my experience. SLIG was a fun yet intense week of studying many aspects of the law with Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist, and Rick Sayre.  I have long wanted to take a class that would help me understand how the law affected my ancestors’ lives and that would teach me how to find those particular laws, so I was excited to take the course The Family History Law Library.

Rick Sayre and Judy Russell

As January arrived, I began to worry. Would I understand what was taught? Would I be able to keep up? Would I retain what I learned so that I could use it? Would there be a lot of homework and would I be able to do the homework?

Well leave it to Judy and Rick to ensure that yes, we would understand what was taught and yes, we would keep up
(most of the time anyway). The class was fun and engaging as we learned many of the ways the law impacted our ancestors’ lives.  And of course we also learned where to find those laws as well.

With the help of an excellent syllabus and scads of documents in our Google Drive, Judy and Rick made sure we would have the needed resources to help us as we review what we learned and continue in our quest to better understand the law.

And yes, there was homework. It challenged me and made me think, even though my brain rebelled and did its best to convince me that the homework was too hard and that I was much too tired.

Among other things, we covered state courts, Federal courts,  legislative and executive records, state property law, the Serial Set, immigration and naturalization.  We learned about civil law, common law, family law, probate law and military law. We learned about Irish law, German law and  then about French law as we delved into Louisiana.  It was fabulous and exhausting all wrapped up into one wonderful week.

It made me realize how many of the difficult to understand situations in my ancestor’s lives are woven in and around the law and I am anxious to dive in and see if applying what I learned can help me to at least understand my ancestors a little better but also hopefully take me a step further in solving some of my never ending genealogical mysteries.

Thank you so much Judy Russell and Rick Sayre for a fantastic week!

Copyright © Michelle G. Taggart 2015, All rights reserved

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